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By Sandra Coopersmith

In General Douglas MacArthur’s farewell address to Congress in 1951 he referred to one of the most popular barracks ballads of his youth, which proclaimed that old soldiers never die, they just fade away.

Not if Richard Marcus has anything to do with it.

Marcus, a former mayor of Culver City, strongly believes that the service given and sacrifice made by our deceased veterans must never be allowed to fade.  “As long as they are remembered, they will never die,” he said.

To this end he has coordinated with the Boy Scouts for many years to put flags on the 80,000-plus graves at the Los Angeles National Cemetery at Wilshire and Sepulveda boulevards as a visual reminder and show of respect.  

“I am extremely proud to know Richard Marcus because he is the biggest proponent of the Boy Scouts and of their tenets of such traits as leadership and patriotism,” said Neil Rubenstein of the Jewish War Veterans.

“Because of his hard work and dedication to flagging these graves every Memorial Day weekend, I get a lump in my throat seeing Old Glory gently waving in the breeze. He is working tirelessly so that next year under his leadership this will be expanded to include the veterans’ graves at Hillside Memorial Park, which will be the first privately organized cemetery in Los Angeles County for this honor.

“We should all be proud Richard Marcus is a member of this community,” Rubenstein concluded.

When asked about the genesis for his extensive involvement in this Memorial Day activity, Marcus responded that “this all started with a Tiger Cub in an orange shirt, my son Ricky, putting a flag on one grave.”

Marla Wolcowitz recalled that “Richard Marcus volunteered immediately when his son Ricky joined Pack #146 here in Culver City, a part of the Crescent Bay District.”

The Crescent Bay District is part of the Western Los Angeles County Council that serves the north and west regions of the county. Marcus, who is the district committee member for the Crescent Bay District, informed the News that “the Council serves 29,000 youth and the Crescent Bay District is the largest, with seven to eight thousand youth.”

“Being a den leader requires many hours of leadership
training,” Wolkowitz continued, “and Richard jumped in with both feet. He didn’t just sit and take the training program but asked all kinds of critical and detailed questions that he felt important in order to provide a superior program within the structure of the program. Later on Richard participated in advanced leadership training offered by the Boy Scouts of America.

“He never left scouting even after his boys ‘aged out’ of the program. Taking on the flag-planting project at the national cemetery is outside of the local pack and scout troop activities. Boy Scouts from all over the Crescent Bay and Western Los Angeles County Council participate.”

Marcus believed participation in scouting would be an excellent way for him to be involved and supportive as a father, as well as an opportunity to pass on values he honored.  

“I was a Boy Scout for eight years so figured this is perfect. My principles, ethics and citizenship values, I owe them all to scouting. And I learned to be a pretty good camper, too. I even got a merit badge in cooking and it would have been two if they gave one for eating!”

 “One of the luckiest kids in Culver City is Richard’s first grandson, Nathan,” said Steve Rose, who heads the Culver City Chamber of Commerce. “Where Nathan is going to really enjoy himself is that Grandpa Richard is going to teach him how to enjoy food! 

“The thing in spending time with Richard is his enjoyment of different types of food and I have never had a more enjoyable time over dinner with anyone than partaking of the opportunity to watch Richard enjoy life.

“Many people count success on the number of toys they accumulate over a lifetime, Richard counts success on the enjoyment of life and how he brings that to his family.

“Richard fills a room! I mean you know he is there when he is there!  I have known him for close to 20 years, as an activist in the Sunkist Park area, civil service commissioner, and a member of the city council. 

“He places the flags on the graves at the national cemetery because he is a Boy Scout and proud to live in a country that has given him and his entire family the opportunity to succeed,” Rose said.

And that family is a great source of joy and pride for Marcus.

“My wife and I married in 1978,” he said, “but we’ve been going steady for 36-and-a-half years. My sons, Ricky and John, are both Eagle Scouts and I now have two grandchildren, a boy of two and a girl who’s four months old. I really consider myself blessed.”

Although his family comes first, his passionate devotion to Boy Scouts unquestionably runs a close second and he needs little encouragement to expound upon the organization at length, detailing its history, activities, beliefs and value to the community. “My wife says the epitaph on my headstone will be ‘one more thing,’” he laughed.

“The Boy Scouts have been doing this for over 35 years,” Marcus said.  “I started to introduce Girl Scouts into this activity about 10 years ago. I’ve been laying flags for 15 years because this provides young people with an activity and a teachable moment about our freedom and the cost of that freedom. And there is a service component — to serve those who served us and their families, with this simple gesture.”

Explaining that “it would cost too much for the cemetery to use staff to plant flags, with over 80,000 graves on 114 acres,” Marcus told how “3,700 Boy and Girl Scouts show up with their leaders on the Saturday morning before Memorial Day as early as 6:30 a.m. to  check in.

“The scouts approach the grave, stop, look at the marker, read the name, place the flag, stand at attention, look again, salute and move to the next grave. It’s a reverential moment. Who says there’s no good kids left in the world anymore?”

Marcus described a change he implemented in the opening program.

“I became co-chair 10 years ago and chair five years later,” he said.  “Everyone on stage was an adult when I became co-chair. Scouting strives to be youth-led, so every year I’ve managed to kick someone off the stage and this last time I even got rid of myself. We had an Eagle Scout as emcee, a Girl Scout did the pledge, a Boy Scout chaplain gave a nondenominational invocation, a Boy Scout bugler blew Taps, a Boy Scout band played the Star Spangled Banner and we had two color guards, Boy Scout and Girl Scout.

“The program is just one component of the day.  There’s a crew monitoring the front gate and a crew consisting of two scouts and an adult at each of the 12 flag boxes, so that the flags are doled out properly. I have an Ambassador Crew whose job is to change negative behavior into positive behavior in a positive way. For example, two scouts could be wrestling on the grass, forgetting that not everything that’s flat and green is meant for play.” 

Marcus explained that the responsibilities continue “pretty much all year. The preparation intensifies and becomes daily starting in January. There are volunteers to recruit and money to raise, as we do fundraising for patches.” 

And his responsibilities have grown.

“Five years ago when I became chair I was asked by the scout executive to accept a mission — to place a flag on every veteran’s grave no matter where they are in our council area,” Marcus said.  “I said OK and we began to expand what we do for Memorial Day. Prior to five years ago the concentration was only on the cemetery on Wilshire. My focus is to have scouts be involved in anything involving observance:  Cemetery, memorial wall, marching, parades, etc.  For example, the troop in Newhall lines Newhall Boulevard with flags. Scouts plant flags in front of the memorial wall in the Valencia-Newhall area, which is dedicated to all five branches of service.”

While attending a funeral at Hillside Memorial Park, -Marcus had an epiphany.

“I had left the chapel and was walking to the grave site. My mind was preoccupied and I stumbled on a grave marker. God works in mysterious ways. Looking down, I saw it was a DOD [Department of Defense] marker, the same distinctive marker you’d see in a national cemetery. For a moment I was disoriented as I wasn’t expecting to see a DOD marker, and then a light went on in my head. There are veterans buried in private cemeteries, but not all have the DOD marker. How could we identify them?”

Marcus, who is not Jewish, knew “Jewish cemeteries aren’t open on Saturdays.  But we could have scouts flag them on the Sunday morning before Memorial Day. This would give Orthodox Jewish scouts an opportunity for service, since the national cemetery is flagged on Saturday. I spoke with Neil Rubenstein, who belongs to the Jewish War Veterans, as they might have knowledge of where some of their buddies were buried.

“Neil got very excited about this project and really jump-started it. He went to the Hillside administrator, became very involved in identifying which graves were for veterans and was out there personally flagging graves for this last Memorial Day.”  

Marcus explained that one of his goals is to create a database to cover not only Hillside but other private cemeteries in the council area and asks anyone who has information about veterans who are buried in such cemeteries to call him at (310) 397-4696 or email him at RAMarcus99@aol.com.

“We have the model and 29,000 youth and I can see this expanding,” he said.  “Our Boy and Girl Scouts are going to be taking care of our fallen heroes on Memorial Day, wherever they are.”

In addition to his escalating responsibilities involving Memorial Day, he has an accounting business; is currently on the board of the Culver City Chamber of Commerce, of which he was treasurer and an executive committee member; and belongs to and was treasurer and a board member of Rotary Club of Culver City, which charters Troop 113.  He also started the largest neighborhood watch program in Culver City in Sunkist Park, and was a founding member of Volunteers on Patrol.

His already-full plate was recently augmented by an unpalatable item — a second diagnosis of breast cancer.

Ten years ago while serving as mayor he received his first diagnosis.

“There was seepage,” Marcus said, “and I was very lucky because it was DCIS [ductal carcinoma in situ] and hadn’t spread. My doctor said seepage doesn’t normally occur until the later stages in men.

But lightning struck twice with that second diagnosis.

“This time I felt a lump,” he said.  “It started to grow, change in shape and become discolored.  I’m going through various pre-op procedures now and surgery will probably be in early September.”

While breast cancer is less common in men, a man’s breast cells, like all cells of the body, can undergo cancerous changes, and Marcus stressed the need for men to do self-examination and “be aware if anything is different.  I read that last year the incidents of breast cancer in men tripled.”

He is hopeful that he will have an excellent prognosis. “After all,” he emphasized, “I’ve got to be my grandson’s Cub Master!”

 

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